Once Were Warriors

“Their people once were warriors. But once... was a long time ago.”

In a South Auckland housing estate, the Heke family crowds into a state house short on money and long on cigarettes, drink and gambling. Beth (Rena Owen) keeps the household going around Jake (Temuera Morrison), a man whose rage fills any room he walks into, and Lee Tamahori shows how the children live inside it. What holds Beth to Jake is the love she still has for him, and that love is the hardest thing in the film.